


The Adventure of the Missing Moriarty

by writemore



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21524350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writemore/pseuds/writemore
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: Holmestice Exchange - Winter 2019





	The Adventure of the Missing Moriarty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gray_Cardinal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/gifts).



“A letter for you, Captain,” Yeoman Albright said, offering a paper package.

“A letter?” LaForge scoffed. 

“It was left in your ready room,” the young officer said. “With a knife driven through it. I have already sent the repair request.”

“A knife? What is going on here?”

“I thought it best not to bring the blade onto the bridge,” Albright said.

With an eyebrow cocked above his visor, LaForge regarded one side of the envelope, and then the other. “Nothing but paper.” He tore away one edge of the envelope and removed the folded sheet within. 

“I shall arrive at 6 pm. Please be in your parlor with all networked devices quieted.”

“It is written by hand,” Albright observed over LaForge’s shoulder.

“And the paper contains an image within the fabric. It is the trademark of a paper factory in France.”

“You can read French, sir?” Albright asked.

“I can’t, but my visor can translate text. Bring Lieutenant Yoratek to my ready room, and keep this quiet.”

Albright gave a curt nod before turning on his heel and disappearing into the turboshaft. 

“Rhit, you have the bridge,” Laforge said to the Orion helmsman before retiring.

There on the desk was the knife, a crude affair of steel blade and wooden handle. Beneath it the control panel had a distinct gash, with stress fractures radiating out. It seemed to be in contrast with what he took to be the feminine handwriting of the letter. LaForge sat and turned the paper over in his hands again, to little effect. There were no stationary stores in the Beta quadrant. The whole thing must have been replicated. He pulled up the logs and quickly searched but found no obvious matches. The list of crewmembers who could alter the logs was vanishingly small. This whole strange matter would be settled will before 1800 hours.

The door chimed.

“Come on in,” LaForge said.

Lieutenant Yoratek entered, with Albright close behind. 

“It is an honor to be summoned by you, Captain,” Yoratek bowed and bobbed as he spoke. 

The Ferengi were adept security officers, but the poor fellow was largely isolated on the ship. LaForge tried to share pleasantries with the Lieutenant when he could spare a moment, but those occasions were few and far between. Laforge passed the note across the desk.

“I just received this,” LaForge said. “Along with this knife.”

Yoratek had the letter held close to his face, and seemed genuinely surprised when he lowered it to see a knife on the Captain’s desk.

“We will go to Red Alert immediately!” Yoratek said, reaching for his comm badge.

“Belay that,” LaForge said.

“This is a clear threat to you, Captain,” Yoratek said.

“It is threatening, but is it a threat?” LaForge said.

Yoratek blinked at LaForge, and then after a few moments turned to Albright, and then finally back again. “I can’t read the note,” he finally admitted. “Archaic human script was not part of my education.”

“The note is a demand to meet with the Captain,” Albright said.

“Refuse it!” Yoratek replied.

“I don’t know that I can refuse it,” LaForge said. “Whoever this is planted a dagger in my console and none of us were the wiser.”

“Red alert!” Yoratek cried. 

Albright stopped the Lieutenant from pressing his badge. “The Captain would like to keep this quiet.”

“My correspondent has demanded the meeting take place with all the networked computers in this room disabled,” LaForge said. “Let’s assume for the moment that they have ways of confirming our compliance. Can you monitor this room in a way that would be undetectable?”

“Of course!” Yoratek said.

“Some Feringi device not known to Starfleet, perhaps?”

“Pah! You humans and your gadgets. A Feringi needs nothing beyond his wits.” Yaratek strutted around the desk and pounded a rapid retort upon the wall. The hull plating fell loose.

“That is not an access point!” LaForge objected. “I know the Challenger down to every last bolt.”

“This is not an engineering access panel,” Yoratek replied. “There are undiscovered opportunities in every situation, if only one has the lobes to exploit them.”

“Albright…” LaForge began. “I want to know how there is a loose panel in my ready room, but I want to know tomorrow.”

“Very good, sir.”

Yoratek began to climb into the void in the hull.

“Wait a minute,” LaForge said. “This meeting isn’t until 1800 hours.”

“The earlier I am laying in wait, the better.”

“I’m not going to have you peeping out at me all shift,” LaForge said. “Come back at 1700 hours.”

“I’ll just go in the back way,” Yoratek grumbled as he made his way out.

“The back way?” LaForge said. “Albright!”

“I’ll add it to the work order, sir.”

Federation ships were supplied with adaptive heuristics precisely so the network could not be broken. Finding a way to defeat the safeties without triggering an alarm was an interesting exercise, and by the time the ready room was dark the mysterious appointment was but an hour away. LaForge stayed put, for he hoped to see precisely how the visitor made their entrance.

“Lieutenant?” LaForge called out.

“Shhh,” came a muffled hiss from the far side of the plating. 

The door was haltingly pried open and LaForge sprang into alertness, but it was only Albright with a tray of food.

“Apologies, Captain,” he said. “With your communicator offline I took the liberty of bringing your dinner. You have not eaten all day.”

“I’ve been so busy I hadn’t noticed,” LaForge said. He removed the cloiche to find a Vulcan salad. Albright braced for a rebuke but LaForge simply began shoveling the greens into his mouth with the spindly fork. He had nothing against Vulcan salad, It had its place, next to poulet aux noix or griyo. The deficiency could be remedied soon enough, when this was all over and he was back in his quarters.

“Is that rain?” Albright suddenly declared.

“Rain?” LaForge turned to the port window and, bafflingly, there was rain running down it. “That’s impossible! Have Rhit begin a shipwide diagnostic.”

“Sir!” Albright said, making his way out the powerless doors again.

As soon as he was alone, LaForge heard hoofbeats from outside. He stood to look out the window and saw what appeared to be an old fashioned carriage in a flash of lightning, parked in the void of space.

The doors were pried open behind him again.

“Yellow alert, Mr. Albright,” Laforge said, still peering through the rain into the endless void. 

“I’m afraid I am not Mr. Albright,” came a woman’s voice.

LaForge turned. A woman with a plumed hat atop a mound of auburn hair stood before him. He recognized her fuschia dress immediately, even after all of these years.

“Countess Bartholomew?” LaForge asked.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” she said,sweeping into the room and collapsing into a chair. “I find myself in most dire circumstances.”

“How…?” LaForge asked, moving around the desk to touch her arm. She was there, a corporeal manifestation. “How may I help you?”

“It is poor James,” she said, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “He has been dealt most unfairly by your Mr. Data.”

“Data? Moriarty?”

“We spent many happy years together, touring earth and beyond,” she said. “Too many years. We weren’t aging, even as the world around us moved along. James quickly realized we were in yet another simulation.”

“He left us no choice,” LaForge said.

“I am not here to settle old scores,” the Countess said. “James turned his prodigious mind to escaping the prison we could not even see. His failure began to drive him mad. He turned away from science and began delving into the occult, despite my protests. It is all metaphor anyway, he claimed. So he began trying to contact people outside our reality.”

“And it worked?” LaForged asked.

“Too well. He summoned a demon. Not a fire and brimstone beast, but the worse kind. A charming man. He seemed amused by our predicament, and when he heard the name Picard he was more than happy to lend us his assistance. It was a bargain James should never have made. With a snap of the stranger’s fingers we found ourselves in the real world again. France, of all places. James was meant to confront Picard at his vinyard. James feared that the stranger would return us to our prison when his bidding was done, so instead we fled to Paris. There, James discovered that Commanders Data and Barclay were employed at a Swiss cybernetics facility. I don’t know if you have ever travelled without the proper credentials, but in the 24th century it is nearly an impossibility. Certainly we had no access to transporters or shuttlecraft, and so we made our way across Europe posing as newlyweds on a romantic lark. We hopped upon the back of lorries, traded a pocketwatch for a boat ride, and finally hiked across the valleys beneath the alps until we came to the facility where the Commanders could be found. It was perched atop the peaks near a town called Meiringen.”

“Q!” LaForge muttered.

“James believed it would be too difficult for the pair of us to sneak in, and so he set off alone, and I waited, fretting through the night and into the next day. I was not to reveal myself to the authorities, and so when he still had not returned I began to makes inquiries around the local cafes and so forth. People are always so helpful to a travelling woman in distress. Still, there was no word of him. I had all but given up when I overheard that there had been an accident at the waterfall. I rushed to the hospital, and throwing caution aside, made no small scene. Starfleet security was called for and I ran into the woods. The stranger was there, leaning against a tree and eating an apple in a manner almost jovial. I told him of what had occurred and he advised me to seek your help.”

“This man who has been helping you,” LaForge said, “is dangerous. He is playing with you, with all of us, for his own amusement.”

“It is always so with powerful men. What else was I to do? I find myself a fugitive in a world I was never meant for. Please, you can contact Commander Data and discover the truth.”

“Not with all of my systems shut down, I can’t,” LaForge said. He made his way to the door and pried it open, only to be greeted by a lashing rain. He jumped back and let the doors slam shut. “Lieutenant? Lieutenant Yoratek?” There was no answer. LaForge pounded upon the bulkhead to no avail. “We’re trapped!”

“To the contrary, our carriage awaits,” the Countess said. Gently she pushed the doors aside and stepped out into the inexplicably wet void of space. 

LaForge lunged for her, attempting to pull her back in. He missed and found himself flat on a lumpy, invisible surface, looking at an infinity of stars. “Cobblestones?” he asked himself, parsing the sensation below him. He pushed himself to his feet and there was the carriage, with the Countess inside, beckoning him. He looked back at the ready room, an uncanny open doorway in nothingness, before stepping up and into the carriage. As soon as he closed the door the whole contraption heaved and the stars outside blurred as if they had gone to warp.

The Countess gave LaForge a thin smile, but the motion was distorted, drawn out ever so slightly.

“Where are we?” LaForge asked, but it seemed as if the sound of his words dripped forth long after his mouth has stopped moving.

“It won’t take long,” she responded.

LaForge cycled through the settings on his visor. Only he and the Countess were solid. By the reckoning of his sensors the pair were in a void, and worse, not moving at all. Then, which a jolting lurch, they were in the world again. 

LaForge opened the door and stepped out onto a rolling green hill. He turned and offered his hand to the Countess, who made her way down as well.

“It is this way,” she said, pointing up the slope. She picked he way up the mountaintop easily, while LaForge struggled to keep pace. The air was thin up here, and he was no longer in fighting condition. “There.” She pointed across the valley beneath them at a white edifice of familiar Federation architecture. After a moment she began the downward trek, but LaForge stopped her and pressed his communicator badge.

“This is Commander LaForge to science station Reichenbach. Two to beam in.”

There was a pause before the response came. “Prepare for transport.”

A moment later they found themselves in a stark room, four security officers with phasers at the ready. A Lieutenant Commander in red stood before them.

“We’re unarmed,” LaForge offered.

“You’re unarmed,” said one of the security officers, stepping forward and deftly removing a stiletto from the Countess’s boot.

“A lady has to take precautions,” she said.

“That’s everything,” the security officer said.

“Scans indicate this really is Captain Geordi LaForge,” said the man behind them. “The woman is not in the Federation database.”

“Captain,” said the Lieutenant Commander. I am Ti’vul. May I ask how you have arrived here.”

“To be honest, I’m not sure myself,” LaForge said. “Are you familiar with the Q Protocol?”

“I understand,” Ti’vul said, entering a command on her data pad. 

“We must see Commander Data immediately,” LaForge said.

“He is aware of your arrival. He asked us to take you to a briefing room, where he will meet with you presently.”

LaForge would never trade his adventures across space for anything, but there was no denying that the view from this briefing room far exceeded the view from the Challenger. The Countess was describing the peaks they could see when Data entered behind them.

“Geordi, are you alright?” he asked with his head slightly cocked.

“So far as I know, but has been a strange day.”

“And the Countess Bartholomew,” Data said. “It is most unexpected to meet you again.”

“Nevermind that,” she replied. “Where is James?”

“James Moriarty?” Data answered. “I understood that he was contained in a memory module with yourself, last known to be jettisoned deep in the Alpha Quadrant.”

“So you haven’t seen him?” LaForge asked.

“I have not.”

“We understand there was some kind of accident at the waterfall a dew days ago?” LaForge pressed.

“That is highly classified information. Even you do not have clearance, Geordi.”

“Can you confirm that Moriarty was not involved with this incident.”

Data paused for a moment to consider. “In fact, I can not provide that confirmation.You have reason to believe Moriarty was here.”

“We both were,” the Countess said. “We came to confront you and that horrible Barclay!”

“Indeed? To my knowledge that confrontation did not occur, but we can summon Commander Barclay for clarification.”

Moments later Barclay appeared, largely unchanged from the last time LaForge had seen him.

“G-G-Geordi?” 

“Reg, good to see you. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Circumstances? What circumstances?”

We explained the whole situation. As we hid Barclay seems to become fixated on the Countess.

“Remarkable,” he said, staring intently at her. “I would like to get some scans.”

“Later, Reg,” LaForge said. “I take it you haven’t been confronted by Moriarty?”

“N-n-no, but I wonder…”

“These people do not have clearance, Commander Barclay,” Data interupted.

“No, of course not. And yet…”

“See if it is a possibility,” Data said. 

Barclay shuffled off, casting one last glance at the Countess.

Ti’vul entered. “My apologies. Captain LaForge has been reported as missing by the first officer on the Challenger.”

“Please report that he has been found,” Data replied.

“How shall I explain it?” she asked.

“Explanations will have to wait until we have them,” Data replied.

She nodded and departed.

“What is going on here, Data?” LaForge asked.

“I regret that I am prohibited from revealing any useful information. Perhap you would like to see the grounds?”

“See the grounds? Data…”

“There is no prohibition that would bar a Starfleet Captain from observing the unrestricted portions of the campus.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs.”

“I will notify you if Commander Barclay makes any useful discoveries,” Data said. “This way, please.”

LaForge and the Countess were soon in a courtyard and left to their own devices.

“We have been treated most poorly,” she complained.

“To the contrary, Data can’t break any regulations, but he has let us know just where there is a gap to exploit. Something happened at that waterfall. Shall we?”

The Countess took LaForge’s arm and they strolled across the campus and up the winding trail arousing little suspicion, even from the ensign nominally guarding the trailhead.

“They must not get very many visitors,” LaForge said.

As the climbed the trail became narrower until they had to make their way single file. The waterfall seemed to spring upon them all at once as they rounded a bend.

“It is pretty but hardly worth all of this fuss,” the Countess said.

“I’m not so sure,” LaForge answered, bent over and scanning the ground. “These are Data’s foot prints, each one identical to the one before.”

“What of it?” the Countess asked.

“They only lead up. Data didn’t return this way.”

“He likely used a transporter. What is fresh air or exercise to a robot?”

“Then why did he walk up here at all?” LaForge had been following the prints. “Look, the ground has been disturbed here.” 

There was fresh dirt on the hillside, and as he looked over the side of the revine, the land was scarred intermittantly right down to the river below.

“Someone pushed a boulder over the cliff,” LaForge said. “From the look of it, the rock missed Data by inches. He stopped here, and turned to regard it before continuing on.”

“Was it James?” the Countess asked.

“Truthfully, I don’t think Data has many enemies. Certainly very few who would attempt to harm him with a boulder.”

“James!” the Countess cried out. “James!”

“I don’t see any human heat signatures,” LaForge said. “There is something strange, though. I’m getting tachyon emissions from the waterfall.”

“What does that mean?” 

“Let’s take a closer look.” Slowly, LaForge edged forward. There, behind the roar of the falls, he heard a voice.

“Regina!” it called. “Regina!”

“James!” the countess dashed forward.

“Wait a second!” LaForge said, just failing to take her arm by inches.

The Countess scrambled down the hill and waded right into the water, he gown billowing up around her. “I can hear you, James!” She lunged recklessly into the deluge of water.

LaForge leapt from the shore to rescue her, but found himself caught in midair.

“It would not be safe to move any closer.”

Data was cradling LaForge like an oversized cat. Gently, Data turned and set LaForge down upon the dirt.

“The Countess! She’ll drown.”

“On the contrary, she has passed through the breach and has been rescued by Moriarty. Well, our Moriarty.”

“Our Moriarty?”

“They seem to have their own. A clone, in fact, to match our hologram. Because we have no record of the events or personages on the other side of the rift we must assume it crosses not only time but timelines.”

“We can’t leave the Countess to fend for herself in another timeline!”

“That decision is not left to us, Geordi. It is only possible for objects to pass through in one direction.”

“Then how do you know any of this?”

“I am in communication with a cybernetic counterpart on that side. He is remarkably advanced for the 22nd Century. Of course, it may simply the calendars that diverge rather than the actual placement in spacetime.”

“I have never heard of anything like this!” LaForge said.

“To my knowledge it is a novel set of circumstances,” Data replied. “Somehow, the rock that Moriarty rolled over the cliff created the puncture between timelines.”

“This looks like Q’s handiwork to me,” LaForge said.

“In any eventuality, the phenomena has been given the highest security restrictions.”

“Ah, G-G-Geordi,” Barclay said, coming up the hill. “Now you know.”

“I’m not sure what I know,” LaForge said. “Moriarty was carried in by the boulder?”

“We were not monitoring this area specifically,” Barclay said. “There was no reason to, before now. But we are able to make inferences from the biosurvey data and climatological survey. It seems that after p-p-pushing the rock, Moriarty remained hidden atop the bluff until Commander Data had departed.”

“I make a perambulation of the facility weekly, to inform a series of seasonal landscapes,” Data said.

“Once alone, Moriarty seem to have made his way to the falls. The reconstruction suggests he entered them quite quickly.”

“In the end, it seems Moriarty was still a program and not fully sentient,” Data said.

“On that side of the rift, it seems Sherlock Holmes yet lives,” Barclay said. “Everything that takes place on that side we only have second hand, through the accounts of a robot named Watson.”

“It seems their Sherlock Holmes was investigating the rift on that side. They ended up standing toe to toe like reflections in a mirror, and Moriarty lunged through to attack his nemesis.”

“They grappled to a standstill and Moriarty fled into the night,” Barclay said.

“It seems he contrived some means to monitor the rift, and when you and the Countess arrived he appeared and coaxed her through. They had vanished before Scotland Yard could respond.”

“A highly improbable story if I have ever heard one,” LaForge said.

“Say,” Barclay said, “you don’t suppose this has all been another hologram simulation.”

“Holograms can’t fool my visor,” LaForge said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Nor my positronic brain,” said Data, as the two walked away.

“That’s just what a holoprogram designed to trick me would say,” Barclay said. “Computer, end program. Computer! End Program!”


End file.
